For those who have been watching the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against five of the big six publishers (and now we can all guess why Harcourt, Brace wasn't also thrown into that mix), Penguin and Macmillan have now released their official legal responses. You can read a summary here, which also contains links to the full pdf files from Penguin and Macmillan.

One major, non-legal question that arises out of this: wait, you get a free enhanced ebook of Winnie-the-Pooh with the purchase of every iPad? How did I miss this? I also enjoyed Penguin's thundering "books are not widgets," which, yes. Also, apparently when a major publishing house hires a new CEO, the other CEOs have a big and expensive party for him. I am only saddened that neither Penguin nor the Department of Justice has given us the dinner menu. And sadly, it seems that sometimes Macmillan got left out the parties and nobody explains why. Nobody. What sort of investigation is this where we don't get the gossip? Was this because of a shellfish allergy?

Snark aside, this will be interesting to watch.